


Signals

by Canaan



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Stand Alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-02
Updated: 2012-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-28 17:05:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/310099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canaan/pseuds/Canaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He never was sure how humans managed such overwhelming desires and such disorganized signaling mechanisms."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Signals

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt fill for the Saying_Yes_2010 ficathon over on LJ. I confess, I put the prompt in, but the plot bunny is properly blamed on some combination of Dameruth and WMR. This one's stand-alone; it's a little to crack-y to go in any of my continuities, even if it didn't turn out to be proper crack. It's more like . . . h/c with a side of crack. Thanks to Yamx for the super-fast beta.
> 
> Disclaimer: RTD and the BBC own all.

It was different on Gallifrey.

Pursuits of the mind were elevated above pursuits of the body. A lifespan that could extend thousands of years didn't lend much urgency to anything but one's survival instinct, and offspring were most often a considered decision leading one or more future parents to have them loomed to continue their lineage. _In vivo_ procreation, with all its variables and randomness, was the exception, not the rule. All the same, it did happen from time to time when there were emotional attachments involved.

And physical desire had been known to raise its ugly head. Among other things. The Doctor had smirked at Rose's reaction to Jack's unabashedly omnivorous sexuality, but Time Lords were ninety percent male by phenotype--the Doctor _did_ hope her reaction had been more surprise than distaste. Because he'd grown to desire them both. Very much, and far more emotionally than was considered healthy in an adult of his species.

He never was sure how humans managed such overwhelming desires and such disorganized signaling mechanisms. Among his own people, there were social codes that dealt with such things and indicators that hadn't changed in over a million years. He knew they wouldn't understand the courtship ritual behind taking them to Nambia Center and showing them the gengo vines in blossom. He wanted to give them each a bloom, but Jack plucked one immediately and tucked it behind Rose's ear. She blushed and giggled until he started telling stories about sex pollen the way Earth's mariners used to tell stories about mermaids, and then she stuck her tongue out.

It was a sexual signal among humans. Trouble was, in Rose's time, humans across half the planet were all over in sexual signals. So much so that they didn't mean anything anymore.

The Doctor was wearing maroon cord around his left wrist, woven into felicity knots he'd almost forgotten how to tie in the decades since he'd last used them. He knew it wouldn't mean anything to Rose and Jack, but he didn't know how to approach them in a human way.

He didn't know why it hurt so much when they didn't notice what he'd expected them not to notice.

***

  
Rose was at her wits' end. She was traveling around the universe with two gorgeous men, and one of them didn't seem to know she was a girl and the other would flirt with her right up to the point it started to look serious, and then everything stopped. She wasn't sure which one she wanted more--she might even be okay with both: If one hot bloke was good, two was better, right? Especially if they were kissing.

Not that the Doctor seemed to notice Jack any more than he noticed her.

She abandoned her hoodies in favor of low-cut blouses. She tried different things with her makeup. She wore skirts, and she thought she might try high heels, except she knew she'd sprain an ankle trying to run in 'em and then she'd have to explain to the Doctor why she'd done such a stupid thing in the first place.

She couldn't convince the Doctor to go to a club. It put a limit on how much showing off she could do.

 _Jack_ noticed. Jack complimented her. Jack was properly appreciative, and then they'd reach some indefinable point where he'd glance over at the Doctor and give her an apologetic look and back away. She was starting to think he was only flirting to be polite, and he was really more interested in the Time Lord. And if he was mostly about men, really, that was fine, but if he was _humouring_ her, she thought she might die of shame.

She was going to run her vibrator into the ground at this rate, and there were things it just didn't do. Like kissing, and caressing her skin, and making that little strangled sound of pleasure and fraying control when she licked it. Not that she wanted to lick it. Coming used to make it easier to be in close quarters with them--it took some of the physical need away. Now it just seemed to wind her more tightly, every time.

If she couldn't convince someone to shag her soon, she was going to scream.

***

  
The Boeshane peninsula was at the arse-end of human space, and everybody knew it. There wasn't much to amuse teenagers in a settlement composed mainly of scientists who'd wanted an out-of-the-way location in which to do their research. You did your schoolwork and your chores. You did study sessions in the cool underground rooms of other people's homes--and sometimes you actually studied during them. You read books and watched vids, and you had a whole lot of sex.

There were rules. No fucking till you were fourteen, when everybody got their implants and their injections. No drinking yourself stupid, because then you weren't any fun. There were games, at parties: pass the fruit and choose your spice, and see who you ended up kissing or groping. Paint symbols on your cheeks that showed what you were interested in, and then put on a blindfold and go with whoever chose you.

There was a whole unspoken language about sex amongst Shaney teenagers. The adults knew it was there, but they didn't speak it. It was one of those things where you had to be on the inside to understand.

As a Time Agent, knowing there were rules--even if you didn't know _what_ they were, yet--made it easier to learn new sets of signals. By the time he found himself masquerading as an RAF officer, Jack barely had to scratch the surface to see the subtle interchanges in officers' clubs that led to trysts illegal under British law.

Rose's signals were blindingly obvious, and if it were up to him, he'd cheerfully have had her in bed (or over the kitchen table, or in that captain's chair, or up against the console with the Doctor watching). It wouldn't have to be serious--though he had an awful, nagging feeling that it _would_ be serious, because the Doctor was _involved_ , even if the Time Lord wasn't actually shagging Rose. Jack could be happy just taking care of some of the sexual tension floating around in the TARDIS. A morning wank in the shower and another in bed at night just did _not_ cut it anymore.

The problem was the Doctor. All the Doctor's signals about Rose boiled down to "hands off," and the best response he'd gotten flirting with the Doctor was the kind of automatic return flirting that engaged the tongue without ever involving the brain.

Rose was frustrated. The Doctor didn't seem affected . . . until after Nambia Center. Then he went from moody to distractedly morose, casting looks at each of them that Jack didn't know how to read. But they were looks, and they were real, and they happened when Jack was alone with him and they both had their heads under the console and their hands full of tools and wiring, not just when the TARDIS shook and Rose did a full-body lurch into Jack's arms instead of sprawling on the deck.

Jack didn't know what the Doctor was signaling, but he was signaling _something_ , and that was good enough for a boy from Boeshane. And if _Jack_ didn't know those signals, well, he knew someone who did.

***

  
"Doctor, come quick!" Jack said.

The Doctor didn't even stop to ask what it was, not when he heard that note in a companion's voice. "Rose, stay here," he said, and ran after Jack, deeper into the TARDIS. Not that there was much that was dangerous in here unless Jack set it off, but there _had_ been that pair of Gengali oxalions. He'd left them safely in the menagerie a dozen years back to live out their lives, but . . .

It was a long sprint down the hallway, a sharp left turn, a set of stairs and then two abrupt rights to a door that opened onto a darkened room. The Doctor had just enough time to grab his sonic screwdriver and fiddle the lights before his foot landed on a bizarrely springy surface and he found himself sailing face-first through several yards of air. He'd just enough time to realize that the floor was softer over here, safely absorbing his impact (and sinking several inches under him in the process), and that he'd lost his grip on the screwdriver when he hit, before something else landed heavily on top of him.

Make that some _one_. Someone warm, soft (except for an unfortunately placed knee on the back of his leg), and exuding Rose's usual complex of excitement and adrenaline pheromones. He wasn't even surprised: Rose made a habit of not listening to him when it suited her.

The floor squished beside them. Rose got her knee shifted off him, and then stopped as another heavy weight settled beside his ribs. The Doctor looked around and didn't see any threats, just his screwdriver gone halfway across the room, a very ordinary-looking bed, and a chest of drawers. "Don't suppose you could get off me?" he said dryly.

"Don't suppose I could," Rose agreed, "seeing as how Jack's being very sure I _can't_."

The Doctor craned his head around to find Jack sitting beside them--leaning very heavily on Rose, to guess from his posture. "Captain?" he said sourly. "You want to tell me what this is about?"

Jack's grin was blinding. "Actually, I was hoping you'd tell me. What's up with the sidelong looks and the long face, lately?" The Doctor flinched and looked somewhere else, putting what he hoped was a harmless smile on his face, but the human pressed on. "Come on, you've got the most amazing ship in the universe, charming company, all the trouble you could ever want to get into, and a voluptuous woman sprawled all over you. So what's going in that Time Lord brain of yours?"

"Jack . . . " The Doctor started to brush off the question, but his eyes caught on that damned cord on his wrist.

"She wants to get into your trousers, just in case you'd missed that, and not that I'm sure what a Time Lord keeps in his trousers."

"Jack!" Though that certainly answered the question about the intent of Rose's sexual signals.

"Doctor," Rose asked, "what _is_ that?"

The Doctor wriggled against the floor, such as it was, checking to see if he had enough leverage to roll Rose off the top of him. All it gained him was an embarassing certainty that if he stood up right now, at least one of his companions was going to want to know if what a Time Lord kept in his trousers really was that similar to a human's.

But wasn't that what he wanted, after all? It was crass and it was human, but it was the truth. "What's what?" he asked.

He felt her turn her head to look down the length of his arm. "On your wrist. You never wear anything different, but you started wearing that a while back."

The Doctor sighed. "Part of a Time Lord social ritual," he said.

"Which part?" Jack asked.

"Jack," Rose said mildly, "could you take your hand off my bum?"

It was the politeness of the request in this ridiculous situation that undid him. The Doctor started laughing. "Th' other part," he wheezed between entirely undignified giggles. "Not that I wouldn't be happy to have my hand on Rose's bum. Or yours. But the felicity knots are the other part of the ritual."

"Jack," Rose said tartly, "he can't breathe and the lack of oxygen's makin' him not make sense. Let me up."

"He doesn't usually need help not making sense. Don't you _like_ being sandwiched between two hot guys?"

The Doctor felt Rose's growl as much as he heard it. "Not when neither of you will put your money where your mouth is. So unless you plan to do a lot more with that hand than just tease me, _take your hand off my arse_."

Whatever Jack did with his hand, the Doctor didn't think it went far. Rose was left gnashing her teeth and groaning. She buried her head in the back of the Doctor's jacket, squirming delightfully against him. "Rose," Jack said, softly, "I'd like to do a whole _lot_ more with that hand, trust me. But you'd better ask the Doctor how he feels about it, because as much as I'd love to shag you till you can't see straight, I love traveling with both of you more. And as much as you want me right now, I know you love him even more than that."

Rose stilled. The Doctor smiled. It seemed like Jack was good at answering unspoken questions. "Would you really want that, Rose?" he asked. "Either of us. Both of us?"

"Yeah," she said tiredly. "I give up. I don't care if it makes me sound like a slag: If one of you doesn't shag me, I think I'm goin' to go mad. And I don't mean just anybody--I mean, very specifically, one of _you_. Are you too alien for that to work, Doctor, or am I just bein' a pest and you don't want it? And would you really throw Jack off the TARDIS if we did?" She hesitated. "Or did you mean what you said about puttin' your hand on _his_ bum, too?"

He expected to feel the frisson of possibilities in the timelines at this moment. It should have been one of those moments where one wrong movement, one wrong word, would change anything. But somehow, it wasn't. "Would that bother you?" he asked.

Rose turned her head again. "Can I see you kiss before I answer that?"

Of all the silly . . . The Doctor craned his head to look at Jack, not surprised to find the other man smiling like a cat with cream on its whiskers. "For that," the Doctor said, " _someone_ is going to have to let me up."

There was a pause, and then a sorting and untangling of limbs before the Doctor could sit up. Rose's fingers caught the cord around his wrist. She plucked at it a little, thoughtfully, as Jack closed the space between them.

His lips were human-warm and tentative, as he waited to see how the Doctor would react. The Doctor let his eyes close, brushing dry lips against dry lips until Jack's tongue teased at his mouth, asking for more. The Doctor let him in, tongue touching tongue softly, full of questions, until the Doctor wrapped a hand around the base of Jack's skull and let months of frustrated confusion pour through him and into that kiss.

When he blinked and drew away, Rose said, "Wow. Just . . . wow. Yeah, I think I'm okay with that." Her nipples stood out in sharp relief beneath her blouse, and in this context, there was no mistaking that signal for anything else.

Jack grinned. "I'm so glad--because it was a lot more than okay. Can I take you two to bed now?"

Rose fiddled with the cord around the Doctor's wrist again. "So what _does_ this mean?" she asked as she got to her feet.

The Doctor stood beside her and offered Jack a hand up. He stood close to her and bent, relieved when she tilted her face up to meet his. Her lips parted for him and she melted against him as he wrapped an arm around her waist. It seemed like a long while before she drew away and looked up at him, her eyes bright with hope and dark with real desire. "Means I wouldn't mind doin' this more than once. With the two of you. If you like it."

The smile on her face was like sunrise after a very long night. "Then take us to bed, and let's find out."


End file.
